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Sunday, 31 December 2017

Kim will not disarm. Day by day he is increasing preparedness for a war that he will fight without mercy.

What
takes place when an “irresistible” force, aka Donald Trump, meets an
“immovable” Kim Jong Un will become clear latest by mid-2019. Either the
United States will give a pass to the military option and continue with
its policy of threats and UN-approved sanctions till then, or there
will be war, waged by the US, Japan and, possibly, South Korea, to take
out the nuclear and missile assets of North Korea before these become
too deadly for countermeasures.

Interestingly, the Korean peninsula is legally still in a state of
war, with only an armistice, rather than a peace treaty being agreed
upon in 1953 between North and South Korea and their respective patrons.
Since then, there have been regular eruptions of tension between the
two sides, with the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) cutting across the 38th
parallel witnessing testy exchanges between the rival militaries.
Although President George W. Bush put North Korea alongside Iraq in his
“Axis of Evil” speech, the 43rd US President showed extreme timidity in
dealing with the challenge to US, Japanese and South Korean security
posed by the steady accretion of the nuclear and missile strength of the
Kim family fiefdom. This same Clinton-era action-reaction cycle has
been played out repeatedly since the early 1990s, in which North Korea
(the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK) would test missiles
and continue with its nuclear weapons research and development, followed
by harsh words, but mild (in comparison to those imposed on
Saddam-ruled Iraq) sanctions by a clutch of countries led by the US and
Japan. The Obama administration did not make any serious effort to give
an impression that it was prepared for conflict, with the consequence
that the coming to power in North Korea of the youthful and steel-nerved
Kim Jong Un in 2010 as the Chairman of the Central Military Commission
(followed a year later by being appointed Supreme Commander of the Armed
Forces) saw a steep acceleration in the pace of both the nuclear as
well as the missile programs.

Their experience with US Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and
Barack Obama has convinced the DPRK “leadership centre” that Washington
is bluffing when it warns Pyongyang of a possible conflict designed to
take out the Kim regime. The only sceptic of such scepticism was Kim
Jong Un’s uncle, Jong Sang Thaek, who warned against dismissing the US
threat of war as empty, and counselled a slowdown in the WMD program so
that international sanctions could be eased and funds diverted to
civilian needs. Such advocacy was counter to Kim Jong Un’s growing
conviction, that any US administration would be relentless in its enmity
to him and his control over North Korea, and hence that any US talk of
compromise was only a smokescreen designed to lull the regime into a
false sense of security. Such negotiations would ensure that Pyongyang
relax its vigilance, and first dilute and then give up its WMD
stockpiles, thereby making inevitable the kinetic US-plus intervention
designed to take out Kim Jong Un, the way Saddam Hussein and Muammar
Gaddafi were in the past. Videos of the final moments of both have been
viewed several times over by Kim Jong Un, and helped make up his mind,
by the start of 2013, never to compromise with the US over the DPRK’s
missile and nuclear weapons program. Soon after that determination, his
still doubting uncle was put to death as a warning to other
conciliators, who immediately fell silent, in some cases due to death by
firing squad.

KIM IS ‘LEAST’ IDEOLOGICAL

Kim Jong Un is the least ideological of the triumvirate of
grandfather, father and himself, who have run North Korea since the
Japanese were ushered out of the peninsula by the US in 1945. Since the
close of 2012, and especially after mid-2015, the Supreme Leader of the
DPRK has presided over a liberalisation of the North Korean economy that
puts in the shade all previous efforts at ensuring a less classically
communist economic structure. Such moves were half-hearted under his
father Kim Jong Il, who did not believe in economic liberalisation, and
ensured that the entire economy remained under the grip of the family
since taking charge of the country in 1994. The consequence was that
relative economic development between the two sides showed a worsening
trend for the North, which by the formal close of Kim Jong Il’s regime
in 2011 had become an economic pygmy compared to South Korea, now among
the most prosperous countries on the planet. Although a decade
(1998-2008) of what may be termed an “evening sunshine” policy was
carried out by South Korea to placate and cajole the North, these
relatively limited opportunities were mostly not taken advantage of by
the doctrinaire Kim Jong Il, whose mind remained anchored to the
Stalinist precepts he had acquired from the Soviet Union. His son Kim
Jong Un was different. Had it not been for the additional sanctions
placed on the DPRK since 2013, the North Korean economy would by now
have begun to narrow the gap with its southern neighbour. A genuine
“sunshine policy” would have worked with the grandson of DPRK founder,
Kim Il Sung, in a way not possible under Kim Jong Il. However, after
2013, Kim Jong Un was emphatic that such a policy would have to accept
the DPRK as a full-fledged nuclear and missile power, as events in the
Middle East and in North Africa during 2011-2013 began in him a deep
distrust for any promises made by the US. From that time onwards, the
Supreme Leader of North Korea was inflexible in his resolve to ensure
that his scientists and technicians mastered nuclear and missile
technology sufficient to land a punishing blow to the US mainland, in
case of an attack by the world’s most powerful country on the DPRK.

‘PURE NORTH MUST BE THE MASTER’

In an inversion of global perceptions, DPRK Supreme Leader Kim Jong
Un regards the Republic of Korea (RoC) as a “slave” country, controlled
by the US-Japan alliance, despite being allowed to curse its masters in
public to “pretend” to its people that it was independent. Despite its
lowly economic performance, the Kim cohorts consider themselves to be
the “purer” representatives of the Korean race, and hence better fitted
to run the entire peninsula, than the elected government in Seoul. Once
the DPRK perfects its nuclear weapons and intercontinental delivery
systems, the intention is to prod the South Korean authorities to open
unification talks “solely between the two parts of Korea” that would
establish a government where there would be a “permanent and honoured
presence” for Kim Jong Un and his key military and security chiefs. None
of this is acceptable to either the US or to South Korea, which would
like to see the dissolution of the DPRK regime and its absorption into
the RoC on the lines of the unification of the Federal Republic of
Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1992. That
took place through the surrender by Mikhail Gorbachev of Moscow’s
interests in the GDR, a humiliating move that was soon followed by the
extinguishing of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) control over
what till that time had been the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR).

Kim Jong Un has no intention of allowing his regime to dissolve, or
to give up his interest in developing a nuclear and missile deterrent
that would be effective against the US and Japan, the two countries he
regards as the “enemies of the Korean race”. Interestingly, the
leadership centre in North Korea believes that “the Japanese tail wags
the American dog”, and that it is Tokyo that is setting the pace for
Washington’s hostility towards Pyongyang. Until the second term began of
George W. Bush, it would have been possible to de-nuclearise North
Korea with minimal damage to either South Korea or Japan, but by the
final two years of the second four-year term of the Obama
administration, North Korean capacities had (in the estimation of
Pyongyang) reached a level where tens of thousands of deaths and many
times that number sick and injured would take place in Japan and South
Korea, were the US to attack the DPRK. By now, those figures for
potential casualties are in the North Korean view be substantial
underestimates, and will include US citizens in Japan, South Korea, Guam
and the Philippines.

DELAY WILL INCREASE CASUALTIES

Just as every year that passed after Hitler’s occupation of the
Rhineland in 1936 steeply increased the potential casualties in the
event of a conflict with Germany, the delay in taking military action
against Pyongyang that has been palpable since the period in office of
President W.J. Clinton, is making certain that the number of those
killed, wounded and rendered sick in the event of war with North Korea
will rise to levels that are already almost unbearable so far as South
Korea and Japan are concerned, and will, before the close of 2018, be
for the US. Each of the three US Presidents placed most of their hope on
the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership ensuring that the DPRK
finally surrender its nuclear stockpiles, and in order to incentivise
Beijing, ensured a steady flow of concessions to the People’s Republic
of China. The second stage was to work through the UN to ensure that
sanctions got imposed on North Korea that would (it was expected) force
the Kim regime to reverse course. Interestingly, in practice, such is
the same policy being pursued by President Trump, in case his tweets are
disregarded. In reality, given China’s essentiality as a base area for
the North Korean economy, it is under no threat even from a fully
weaponised North Korea. Nor is Russia, the “steadfast historical friend”
of the Kim family. At the same time, a DPRK made immune from
retaliation through its nuclear arsenal would be able to ceaselessly
harass the US and Japan the way nuclear-armed Pakistan (another ally of
Beijing) does India, thereby weakening both and diverting their
attention away from Beijing and towards defence against North Korean
asymmetric warfare. Indeed, the greater the DPRK menace, the more
important it would be (in the traditional Washington calculus) to
placate Beijing in order to incentivise it to prod Pyongyang into
“better behaviour” with the US and Japan. Such has been the theory and
practice since Bill Clinton’s tenure in the White House.

SANCTIONS BACKFIRING

The behaviour of the “International Community” (i.e. the US-led
alliance) towards North Korea meets the classic definition of insanity,
which is to repeat an activity over and over again in the expectation
that it would generate a different result. The reality is that since
2001 and the US attack on Afghanistan, Pyongyang has diversified its
sources of cash and vital components, not for civilian, but for military
use. Through various means such as counterfeiting, smuggling, cyber
scamming, cybercurrency, hacking and sale of services to criminal and
rogue players, the Kim regime has ensured that there is a sufficient
flow of funds for the WMD program and its delivery systems. The more the
sanctions lever gets used, the greater the resort of the Kim regime to
such underground activities. Paradoxically, such a shift has decreased,
rather than enhanced global security, especially because the sanctions
causing them have not been able to appreciably affect the North Korean
WMD program, including its nuclear component. The DPRK regime leadership
core believes that “Koreans are not Arabs”, by which is meant that Kim
Jong Un will not wait in a catatonic state the way Saddam Hussein or to a
considerable extent Muammar Gaddafi did before their forces were
attacked in 1990, 2003 and 2011 by a US-led and a French-led coalition,
respectively. The DPRK leadership intends to build up military,
especially WMD capabilities, and if necessary, “to strike first before
an imminent” US-led attack. This willingness to go to war if an attack
by the other side is calculated to be imminent, introduces yet another
strand of risk and uncertainty into the Korean peninsula calculus,
making even the most casual public remarks by US or Japanese leaders
capable of triggering an armed response that from then onwards will
follow a pre-determined escalatory logic that early on escalates into
the WMD stage.

MASS SLAUGHTER IS KIM’S TARGET

The sending back of Otto Warmbier in a severely damaged condition may
have been as a human “technology demonstrator” of what the North Korean
regime is capable of, should it unleash its chemical or biological
arsenal. According to elements north of the 38th parallel, the life
support systems of Warmbier were removed soon after he reached the US,
“because of the realisation that the damage to him was too extensive and
permanent to permit anything in the way of (what may be called) a human
life”. In both South Korea and Japan, the DPRK is known to have
embedded human vectors, who can get activated to spray biological agents
in populated areas once a conflict begins. Since 2015, Supreme Leader
Kim has “given priority to setting up such networks in Canada as well”,
so that these may enter the US easily, if needed. While efforts are
ongoing to create agent networks in the US that are similar to those
already operational in Japan and South Korea, these seem to be some
years from achieving criticality. Once Pyongyang develops enough nuclear
and missile capability to render a US attack merely a theoretical
possibility, the forecast is that North Korea will facilitate
“asymmetric warfare” vectors within the US and Japan, the way Pakistan
is active in India. Just as nuclear-armed Islamabad regards itself as
safe from significant retaliation from Delhi, so will Pyongyang over
Washington and Tokyo, once the capability to ensure mass slaughter
within the continental US gets perfected and demonstrated by the DPRK, a
stage that technical personnel in Pyongyang expect will take place
“well before the middle of 2019”, no matter the UN sanctions imposed on
North Korea. Stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have been
added to since 2013 under instructions from Supreme Leader Kim.

Either the US will have to learn to render minimally toxic its
co-existence with North Korea (an option that Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un
does not extend to Japan) through ensuring what may be termed a “Midday
Sunshine” policy towards the Kim regime, or it will have to learn to
live with a succession of taunts, jabs and pinpricks the way India has
had to ensure with Pakistan, once Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1986
declined the offer of the Soviet Union to jointly attack that country
and destroy its military capabilities. The other option is war, well
before mid-2019 (after which stage it will be too late, without
horrendous loss of life, including on the west coast of the US).

BLUFFING OR NOT?

It is now up to President Trump and his national security
establishment to demonstrate in practice that they are not bluffing when
they warn Pyongyang to disarm or face war. And if they are, to reach
out to Supreme Leader Kim, rather than continue with a failed policy of
sanctions that only drives North Korea into yet more toxic behaviour,
often clandestinely. Kim Jong Un will not disarm, and day by day he is
increasing preparedness for a war that he will fight without mercy. This
is a war that he is seeking to prevent, not through surrender of WMD,
but by crossing the threshold into nuclear and missile capability to hit
cities within much of the continental US. Whether Donald Trump is
serious or not when he talks of war is, as yet, unclear. What is beyond
doubt is that Kim Jong Un is wholly serious when he says that he will
continue to develop WMD capability, no matter what the cost in
sanctions. And that if a war comes, he will unleash on the US and Japan
(and South Korea, if Seoul joins forces with Tokyo and Washington) the
full range of nuclear, conventional and asymmetric assets that he has
built up at an accelerating pace since 2013, the year when he reached
the definitive finding that compromise on the nuclear issue was no
longer an option.

The unthinking rush to vengeance against a miscellany of Arab despots
by George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Nicholas
Sarkozy and Francois Hollande has created a crisis in the Korean
peninsula that may lead to the world’s first nuclear war since 1945.

Saturday, 30 December 2017

Had
Gujarati wisdom been fully applied and tax rates brought down
substantially, both revenue collection and the number of taxpayers would
have risen.

The
governance system in India remains locked inside a time warp keeping
its responses anchored to the period when the Union Jack flew over what
is now Rashtrapati Bhavan. However, increasingly the people of this
country have willy-nilly acquired the skill-sets needed to adapt to a
world pervaded by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial General
Intelligence (AGI). Such a world may mean that only around 20% of the
population will be directly involved in managing AGI and AI-assisted
systems, while much of the rest of the population provide services and
commodities to the (AGI and AI-directing) fifth of the population. We
are already seeing such a transformation from goods to services in some
of the better shopping malls in the metro centres, where outlets selling
commodities are steadily getting replaced by movie theatres, health
spas, children’s play areas, games arenas, food outlets and video play
consoles. Such an economic system requires those earning higher incomes
to spend a goodly proportion of such takings, so that others share in
their wealth. An example is the wedding industry in India, which
involves millions of individuals serving up music, entertainment,
temporary facilities and much else to the families of the bride and
groom. Given the reality of officials having relatively low income
levels (as compared with the commercial sector) going together with high
dollops of power and discretion (especially those belonging to the IAS,
the IPS, the IRS and other elite administrative cadres) in post-1947
India, to expect governmental corruption to get eliminated is
unrealistic. Since 2004, the smaller than needed doses of economic
reform that were carried out since Narasimha Rao have been reversed,
such that massive boosts in administrative discretion and intrusion took
place while Manmohan Singh was legally in charge of the Central
government. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel believed that practically every
individual in the civil service had integrity and a desire to improve
the lives of the citizenry in general, so that it was safe to transfer
huge tranches of discretionary and disciplinary authority to them. This
assumption and practice has continued since the Sardar’s time, including
by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Income-tax officers, for example, have
been given freedom and powers on a scale unprecedented in post-1947
India, and they have, therefore, been busy sending tax notices and
raiding several times more individuals that was the case under Finance
Minister Jaswant Singh. However, such exertions have resulted only in a
moderate rise in the number of registered taxpayers, from 3.65 crore to
4.07 crore, with actual income-tax contributors this year remaining at
around 2 crore. Had Gujarati wisdom been fully applied and effective tax
rates brought down substantially, both revenue collection as well as
the number of taxpayers would have risen by several times more than is
the case now. Empirical evidence shows that reductions in tax rates have
invariably led to more than proportionate increases in both taxpayer
base as well as collections. Narendra Modi has been celebrated across
the globe as a maestro of economic administration. He needs to take
authority back from his officials to ensure that the 2018-19 Union
Budget breaks away from those witnessed since 2004 by lowering effective
tax rates substantially.

The Union Government has launched a “War
on Cash” since coming to office, so that such transactions in key
economic job creating sectors appear to have been substantially reduced.
However, the structure and mechanics of administration still result in
substantial amounts of undeclared cash. For example, since high GST
rates were fixed on several items, more service outlets than before are
offering customers the choice of paying in cash, thereby getting a price
reduced by the quantum of GST that would otherwise have been levied. At
the same time, those establishments that honestly declare their incomes
and require the same from their customers are witnessing a fall in
business. Many High Net Worth individuals are now celebrating the
marriage of family members in locations such as Rome or Bangkok, away
from the radar of the tax authorities. Increasing amounts of cash have
been moving illegally outside rather than getting invested or otherwise
spent in India. North Block’s obsessive search for every rupee of
available revenue is having the effect of dampening spending. Not
declaring taxable income is of course wrong, both legally and ethically.
However, it would be unrealistic to expect either this evil to vanish
in a short period or to believe that the official machinery is such as
to reduce leakages to low levels. Had that been the case, around Rs
550,000 crore of the 86% of currency made illegal on 8 November 2016
would not have dared to return to the banking system, whereas in
practice almost all the banned currency returned for conversion.

The forthcoming Union Budget needs to be
finalised with Gujarati practicality, and must ensure a red carpet to
investment and consumer activity, on the correct premise that a higher
velocity of circulation of money will ensure that some tax gets paid
somewhere and somehow in a way impossible if much of potential spending
were driven overseas or extinguished through police methods. A
“Gujarati” budget would cut taxes and make compliance simple, thereby
ensuring that a climate of optimism and growth replaces the present
atmosphere of dread of official excess. The 2018-19 Union Budget will
shape the remainder of Prime Minister Modi’s term in office and must
bear witness to the Prime Minister’s innate pragmatism and pro-growth
instincts.

Friday, 29 December 2017

THE Washington Establishment — otherwise known as the Beltway – got
it completely wrong on Donald John Trump, the 45th President of the
United States. They belittled his talents and magnified his faults,
continuing to believe that the candidate who unfairly deprived the real
(although “complaisant”) challenger Bernie Sanders of the Democratic
Party nomination would win the November 8,2016 elections. The Clintons
remain the most formidable political family in the US, and have their
tentacles in much of the Federal bureaucracy, because of the way in
which they operate to promote the careers of loyalists and blight the
fortunes of those opposed to them.
The only Washington group that could pose a challenge to the Clinton
mutual support system are those Beltway residents who have married
spouses of Chinese origin. These spouses form a formidable club of
sisters in the capital of what is still the most influential country on
the globe, and work ceaselessly to protect the interests and careers of
those of their husbands who have found themselves in a rough patch.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, is among the most prominent
of those who have married ethnic Chinese, and in his case, his
Taiwanese wife Elaine Chao is every bit as famous as he himself is,
being a member of past and even the present Cabinet of the US President.
Ms Chao has strong connections with the Chinese diaspora across the
world, a pool of immensely successful individuals who are being tapped
by Chinese President Xi Jinping to ensure the success of his epochal
Belt & Road Initative. It may be mentioned that the Clintons are
close friends with several top notch individuals in the Chinese
diaspora, exactly as they are with leadership elements in the Indian
diaspora. The Clinton code is to “help those who help”, which is very
different from those politicians who greedily accept help from others
but decline to reciprocate in the slightest. The Washington Beltway
staved off an embarrassing probe into the wy in which it is meshed with
the Clintons by ensuring that all investigations into the Clinton
Foundation were stopped, even as the enquiry to dig up evidence which
could lead to the impeachment of President Trump has continued at high
speed. Special Counsel Robert Mueller knows that Watergate Inquisitor
Kenneth Starr became an object of ridicule when he failed to engineer
the removal of Bill Clinton, and wants to avert that fate by being the
first Special Counsel to ensure the successful impeachment of a US
President.
The entire Beltway (led by the Clinton cohort) has been working on
overdrive to ensure that bits and pieces of “evidence” get discovered
that collectively can get used to build up a case that Trump was what
Hillary Clinton accused him publicly of being, a “puppet of Vladimir
Putin”. A charge that is monstrous in its mendacity but believed by
millions across the globe because of the communications network of the
anti-Trump establishment. Across the world, chancelleries refused to
believe that Trump would win, and since November 8,2016 are being told
by the Washington Beltway that “it is only a matter of months” before
Trump quits through impeachment, a process that will begin only if the
Democratic Party secures a majority in the House of Representatives and
Senate, or if Special Counsel Mueller can meet the expectation of his
admirers are cook up a credible case of obstruction of justice and
treason against Donald Trump. Ironically, what Putin is being accused of
doing in the 2016 US elections is exactly what Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton did to several countries during her tenure, when
social media and street power was promiscuously used by the Obama
administration to ensure the harassment if not the defeat of those
leaders who refused to obey the wishes of the Washington establishment.
Hillary Clinton crossed a red line when she, together with the Soros and
Omidyar Foundations ( both of which are very active in South Asia )
engineered the defeat of the Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President,
replacing him with a mafia don similar to the mafiosi types that the
Clinton administration backed in Moscow after Mikhail Gorbachev ensured
the fall of the Soviet Union through his blind belief in his ability to
survive the destruction of his party the way Chairman Mao was
strengthened after the Old Guard of the Chinese Communist Party was
eliminated during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
From then onwards, Russian-speaking Ukrainians worked in cyberspace to
slow down Hillary Clinton’s rise to power. They were joined ( without
each other’s knowledge) by Democratic Party loyalists upset at the
underhand way in which Bernie Sanders had been deprived of his victory
over Hillary Clinton. The two streams ensured a series of setbacks in
the Clinton campaign, all of which it is now Mueller’s task to pin on
the shoulders of Donald John Trump, even through the current US
President was not in this toxic loop in the slightest. Meanwhile, Trump
is working to fulfil his poll promises, unlike so many other
politicians. Ignoring poll numbers, Trump has cut taxes and blocked
entry into the US for those he sees as being less than committed to the
values of the world’s most powerful country.
The mist and fog of disinformation against him may combine with some of
the elitist policies of Republican House and Senate members to reduce
their number in 2018, but overall, it will remain a daunting task even
for Robert Mueller to create a lethal conspiracy out of the mass of hot
air that is all the circumstantial evidence he has to work on. The odds
are that Trump will last his term, and if the Clintons continue to
dominate the Democratic Party, will win a second term. The way in which
Hillary and Bob Clinton are keeping the Trump banner afloat gives the
reason why the US President has let both off the hook so far as the
funding of the Clinton Foundation is concerned.

Wednesday, 27 December 2017

Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat (M.D. Nalapat) is Director, Geopolitics &
International Relations, UNESCO Peace Chair. Also Editorial Director of
The Sunday Guardian and Itv network (India), Vice-Chair of Manipal
University’s Advanced Research Group, and Director of the Department of
Geopolitics, Manipal University. He has been the Coordinating Editor of
the Times of India and editor of the Mathrubhumi.
His message was presented in the opening plenary, titled: "Vision for
Peaceful Reunification and Multi-Sector Contribution Mapping" with the
theme of "Leadership toward Peaceful Korea Unification".

Tuesday, 26 December 2017

The Washington establishment got it completely wrong on Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the
United States.

They belittled his talents and magnified his faults, continuing to
believe that the candidate who unfairly deprived the real (although
"complacent" ) challenger Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party nomination would win the Nov. 8, 2016 elections.

The Clintons remain the most formidable political family in the
United States and have their tentacles in much of the federal
bureaucracy because of the way in which they operate to promote the
careers of loyalists and blight the fortunes of those opposed to them.
The only Washington group that could pose a challenge to the Clinton
mutual support system are those Beltway residents who have married
spouses of Chinese origin. These spouses form a formidable club of
sisters in the capital of what is still the most influential country on
the globe, and work ceaselessly to protect the interests and careers of
those of their husbands who have found themselves in a rough patch.

Mitch McConnell,
the Senate majority leader, is among the most prominent of those who
have married ethnic Chinese, and in his case, his Taiwanese wife, Elaine Chao,
is every bit as famous as he is, being a member of past and the present
Cabinet of the U.S. president. Chao has strong connections with the
Chinese diaspora across the world, a pool of immensely successful
individuals who are being tapped by Chinese President Xi Jinping to ensure the success of his epochal Belt & Road Initative.

It may be mentioned that the Clintons are close friends with several
top-notch individuals in the Chinese diaspora, exactly as they are with
leadership elements in the Indian diaspora. The Clinton
code is to "help those who help," which is very different from those
politicians who greedily accept help from others but decline to
reciprocate in the slightest. The Washington Beltway staved off an
embarrassing probe into the way in which it is meshed with the Clintons
by ensuring that all investigations into the Clinton Foundation were
stopped, even as the inquiry to dig up evidence which could lead to the
impeachment of Trump has continued at high speed

Special Counsel Robert Mueller knows that inquisitor Kenneth Starr became an object of ridicule when he failed to engineer the removal of President Bill Clinton
and wants to avert that fate by being the first special counsel to
ensure the successful impeachment of a U.S. president. The entire
Beltway (led by the Clinton cohort) has been working on overdrive to
ensure that bits and pieces of "evidence" get discovered that
collectively can get used to build up a case that Trump was what Hillary Clinton
accused him publicly of being, a "puppet of Vladimir Putin" -- a charge
that is monstrous in its mendacity but believed by millions across the
globe because of the communications network of the anti-Trump
establishment.

Across the world, chancelleries refused to believe that Trump would
win, and since Nov. 8,2016 are being told by the Washington Beltway that
"it is only a matter of months" before Trump quits through impeachment,
a process that will begin only if the Democratic Party secures a
majority in the House of Representatives and Senate, or if Mueller can
meet the expectation of his admirers and cook up a
credible case of obstruction of justice and treason against Trump.

Ironically, what Putin is being accused of doing in the 2016 U.S.
elections is exactly what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did to
several countries during her tenure, when social media and street power
were promiscuously used by the Obama
administration to ensure the harassment if not the defeat of those
leaders who refused to obey the wishes of the Washington establishment.

Hillary Clinton crossed a red line when she, together with the Soros
and Omidyar Foundations (both of which are very active in the Indian
subcontinent) engineered the defeat of the Moscow-friendly Ukrainian
president, replacing him with a mafia don similar to the mafiosi types
that the Clinton administration backed in Moscow after Mikhail Gorbachev
ensured the fall of the Soviet Union through his blind belief in his
ability to survive the destruction of his party the way Chairman Mao was
strengthened after the Old Guard of the Chinese Communist Party was
eliminated during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

From then onward, Russian-speaking Ukrainians worked in cyberspace to
slow down Hillary Clinton's rise to power.They were joined (without
each other's knowledge) by Democratic Party loyalists upset at the
underhanded way in which Bernie Sanders had been deprived of his victory
over Hillary Clinton. The two streams ensured a series of setbacks in
the Clinton campaign, all of which it is now Mueller's task to pin on
the shoulders of Trump, even though the current U.S. president was not
in this toxic loop in the slightest.

Meanwhile,Trump is working to fulfill his poll promises, unlike so
many other politicians. Ignoring poll numbers, Trump has cut taxes and
blocked entry into the United States for those he sees as being less
than committed to the values of the world's most powerful country. The
mist and fog of disinformation against him may combine with some of the
elitist policies of Republican House and Senate members to reduce their
number in 2018, but overall, it will remain a daunting task even
for Mueller to create a lethal conspiracy out of the mass of hot air
that is all the circumstantial evidence he has to work on.

The odds are that Trump will last his term, and if the Clintons
continue to dominate the Democratic Party, will win a second term. The
way in which Hillary and Bill Clinton are keeping the Trump banner
afloat gives the reason why the U.S. president has let both off the hook
so far as the funding of the Clinton Foundation is concerned.

Saturday, 23 December 2017

The
2G verdict, when juxtaposed with what seems a contrary SC judgement,
has introduced a further layer of complexity in a practical
understanding of legal system.

The
2012 Supreme Court judgement cancelling 122 telecom licences, including
denying the allocation of spectrum to eight companies, altered the
telecom industry in India, ensuring that a handful of companies would
carve up the market rather than the several dozen that would have
survived, had even a third of the 122 licencees followed through on
their successful applications . Given Comptroller & Auditor General
Vinod Rai’s calculation of “presumptive” spectrum value, it was
politically (and almost certainly legally) impossible for the Central
government to auction spectrum at less than a steep price. As a
consequence, the few telecom companies still left in India’s domestic
market have much less funds to improve their services and
infrastructure, with the consequence that telecom services in India are
way below most other countries in standards. Broadband speeds are at
sub-bullock cart level, a factor that the officials tasked last year to
prepare a roadmap for the demonetisation of currency ought to have
factored in before rushing ahead with such a hugely consequential
measure. They also ignored such issues as the fact that a change in the
size of currency notes would require a time-consuming recalibration of
ATMs, or that the exclusion of cooperative banks from the currency
exchange mechanism would severely hurt the rural sector, where such
banks are found in far greater profusion than standard commercial banks.
After the Supreme Court’s 2G verdict, both domestic as well as foreign
investors realised that any policy would become final only after a
lengthy legal process that might take a decade, if the parties concerned
were lucky, and several decades if not. Of course, the judicial system
in India, manned by some of the finest judges in the world, would still
have the discretion to take a relook at past verdicts, no matter what
the efflux of time. This means that any government policy would have a
legal Damocles sword hanging permanently over its implementation.

When the Supreme Court cancelled the
telecom licences given by Telecom Minister A. Raja, it was assumed by
the public that evidence of misfeasance was discovered. Interestingly,
it would appear from the labours of the CBI that Raja operated with
complete autonomy within his ministry, as neither the then Finance
Minister or Law Minister have figured in CBI or ED investigations. Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh has been found to function in a bubble
independent of the PMO, and therefore ignorant of what was actually
taken place within “his” government. Five years after the SC verdict,
the CBI Special Court has come up with the finding that the CBI and the
ED have failed to discover any misdeed by Raja or by anybody else in the
2G matter. Those whose intellectual faculties are below the elevated
level of those at the top of the legal profession—whether such worthies
be on the bench or the bar—are bemused as to how different the CBI
court’s verdict seems from the SC’s, especially because the Supreme
Court is the apex of the judicial structure. The 2G verdict, when
juxtaposed with what seems a contrary SC judgement, has introduced a
further layer of complexity in a practical understanding of the
country’s legal system, to add to the many collectively making the
processes of justice in India more ponderous and complex than any in
other major democracies. It must be said, however, that the CBI judge
has shown his independence from the agency by writing out a judgement
that blames the CBI and the ED for extremely shoddy work, especially
during the past few years, when it was expected that both would function
with greater efficiency than before. Judge O.P. Saini has even pointed
to lapses within the PMO, and in such detail as to make it mandatory for
an investigation to get carried out as to why these occurred. Of
course, it is well known that our agencies are masters at creating
“false guilt” (through concocting and misrepresenting evidence against
those they target) or “fake innocence”, in which they ignore facts that
establish guilt and instead come up with a bag of alternative facts
designed to protect the wrongdoer from prison. Television anchors
routinely holler out that “the CBI must be brought in” despite even such
examples of Keystone Cops-style defective—sorry, detective—work as the
Aarushi murder case, thereby establishing that in India, hope springs
eternal, while experience very quickly gets buried the way facts are in
several investigations.

When the Supreme Court cancelled the telecom
licences given by then Telecom Minister A. Raja, it was assumed by the
public that evidence of misfeasance was discovered.

BJP spokespersons are distinguished by
their command of the arcana of law, and the culling out of highly
technical legalese to explain situations, especially political and
policy setbacks. They are now pointing out that the CBI court is but a
lowly link in the chain of justice in India, and that appeal after
appeal will follow. However, so far as the 2019 Lok Sabha polls are
concerned, it is unlikely that any other court judgement on the 2G
matter will come before the elections, which means that the corruption
plank the BJP used with such skill against the Congress Party in the
2014 polls has suddenly become much shakier. Narendra Modi has, for
close to two decades been blessed by luck, including since taking over
as PM, such as by the crash in world oil prices. Judging by recent
events, it would appear that some of that good fortune is starting to
migrate to Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Friday, 22 December 2017

IN 2010, when the Sunday Guardian weekly was launched by the eminent
jurist Ram Jethmalani and the accomplished editor M J Akbar (who is now
Minister of State for External Affairs in the Modi Council of
Ministers), there were very few newspapers and magazines that were
sympathetic to Narendra Modi,then Chief Minister of Gujarat. At that
time, Ram Jethmalani was among the very few distinguished names in India
who were openly in favour of Modi becoming the BJP nominee for the
Prime Ministership of India, this despite a close friendship spanning
four decades with L K Advani, the then front-runner for the role. Even
business houses were chary of being openly identified with Modi.
When the Sunday Guardian brought out a 20-page special supplement in
2011 that showcased exactly why Narendra Damodardas Modi would make an
excellent Prime Minister, several of the business houses now fawning
over Prime Minister Modi refused to give advertisements for the special
issue. They were clearly nervous of attracting the ire of Sonia Gandhi,
who would have frowned against any friendly portrayal of a political
leader whom she attacked on a daily basis, even going to the extent of
calling him a “Merchant of Death”. However, It must be said that the
Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) under Modi worked with the efficiency of
clockwork, which is why Modi enjoyed an all-India reputation for
effective governance. After the 2014 victory of the BJP in the national
elections, a small social media group clustered around Modi rushed to
claim credit for the victory.
The fact is that they were irrelevant in the final result, which was 70%
caused by the extreme unpopularity of Sonia Gandhi and 30% by the image
of Modi as an effective CEO of his state. This unpopularity was why
your columnist had stated in 2011 itself that the Congress Party would
be well advised to hand over the presidentship of the party to Rahul
Gandhi, and even the Prime Ministership. Had Rahul taken charge at that
point in time, and presented to a youthful nation a fresh set of faces
in the Union Cabinet, the score of the party in the 2014 polls would
have entered three digits. Indeed, now that Rahul Gandhi has finally
overcome the obstacles placed in his path by senior leaders of the party
anxious that they continue to hold the reins of power through the
continuation at the top of Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Party has abruptly
emerged as a challenger to the BJP in a way that it was not from 2011
onwards. Indeed, from 2013 onwards, it was obvious that the party would
cede power to a BJP led by Modi in the coming polls.
This columnist had forecast 300 Lower House seats for the party in the
polls, and despite often poor selection of candidates, that level was
almost reached. However, since then it has been a slow downward
slide,such that it is becoming likely that the government which comes to
power in 2019 will be a coalition. Should the BJP not substantially
improve the quality of governance and its delivery to the people, the
way would be open for the Congress Party led by Rahul Gandhi to reach
around 130 seats, thereby giving it a chance at leading the next
coalition. The BJP needs more than 220 seats to succeed in forming a
coalition government, about 90 more than what the Congress needs.
However, in a change of mood that is nothing less than spectacular, the
overwhelming bulk of the media in India have recognized in Modi the
qualities for which Sunday Guardian had batted for him all the years
that it has been published.
Television channels compete with each other to adulate the very
individual whom they used to vilify while he was Chief Minister of the
State of Gujarat. Most spew venom against Rahul Gandhi, calling him
names and casting doubt on even his intellectual competence in a manner
that shows the depth of their admiration for Modi. As for newspapers,
almost all the columns are devoted to showing how wonderful Modi is and
how terrible Rahul is, each newspaper competing with the other to show
that it is the staunchest advocate of Prime Minister Modi. It has been a
bit bewildering for those at the Sunday Guardian, to find themselves in
a crowd where till 2013 they were almost alone in their defence of Modi
and their confidence that he would make an excellent Prime Minister. As
indeed he has. The problem facing the Prime Minister is not that he has
done an outstanding job since 26 May 2014. He has, despite the fact
that several of his ministers are way below average in their capacity
for administrative excellence, while the fact that Prime Minister Modi
has retained almost all the civil servants who were favourites during
the Sonia-Manmohan era has affected the speed and quality of delivery of
results.
Although Modi comes up with innovative ideas, his may be compared to a
military where Airman Modi conducts deadly bombing runs on obstacles to
growth through his relentless push for better standards and
implementation, but thereafter the Ground Force ( comprising of his top
officials and ministers) shows themselves to be less than effective in
taking advantage of the superb initial effort put in by the Prime
Minister. Among the problems is that the officials around Modi are
mostly Old School, and rely on other Old School friends to fill top
jobs. To take the example of the Finance Commission, the Chairmanship of
this has gone to a superannuated civil servant who in his political
avatar switched from Congress to regional parties and now to BJP, all
the while enjoying the cool shades of power. Although highly regarded by
several corporate houses for his friendly mien, Nandu Singh has not
thus far shown much of a capacity for innovation.

Saturday, 16 December 2017

Use
of state power to enforce outdated preferences on diet, dress,
lifestyle and in other ways of the populace has resulted in a weakening
of the liberal ecosystem.

The
quintessential quality of Sanatan Dharma is its openness to the
adoption of differing options and concepts, its acceptance of diversity
and an emphasis on inclusion, rather than exclusion. In contrast stands
Wahhabism, a doctrine enunciated in the 18th century by Abdel Wahhab, a
resident of the Nejd region of what is now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The exclusivist and dogmatic tenets of Wahhabism are in contrast to the
spirit of Islam, which places stress on “Ijtehad” or self-reflection.
The believer is encouraged to exercise his or her own mind in
interpreting doctrines, so that they reflect the realities of the day,
rather than get tethered to situations that are outdated and irrelevant.
As Maqbool Jafri writes, “The Almighty has put our brain in the skull
and not in our ankle. The positioning of the brain at the top of the
body signifies the value and importance of the mind. ” Those responsible
for the recent government order blocking condom advertisements from
appearing on television between 6am and 10pm have clearly not utilised
their minds while taking a decision that reveals an imperviousness to
current needs, and this in the name of “Bharatiya sanskriti”. In fact,
such retrogressive thinking is an insult to India’s traditionally
liberal ethos. Sex is certainly taboo in convents and in monasteries,
but is it the contention of the drafters of such an order that the whole
of India should be a giant version of such cloistered locations? Given
that sexual activity will take place, even by the young, what is needed
is to ensure that they are given knowledge of, and access to, methods
that keep such activity disease and consequence-free. In other words,
that folks should be given information about the need for condoms,
including through primetime television advertising. Thanks to an absurd
censorship order, such information will no longer be easily available to
the overwhelming majority of individuals. This despite their needing
such information to ensure both population as well as disease control.

There are leaders in South Africa who
call for the avoidance of prophylactics by the local population, a cry
that, if heeded, will result in a sharp rise in the incidence of AIDS as
well as other diseases related to sexual activity. However, none of
such misguided individuals went so far as to ban condom advertisements
in the manner now done in “modern” India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
traverses the globe seeking to enhance the image of our country. Such
deeds get undercut by the retrogressive measures that unfortunately have
been occurring in India even after 26 May 2014, and that too in such
profusion as to generate sniggers at the very mention of India in global
fora.

Passing an order first and doing any
thinking of consequences afterwards seems to have become the
distinguishing mark of the bureaucracy, even in the new dispensation.
The way demonetisation was implemented, liquidity got choked and
millions lost their jobs as a result. A year later, cash has come back,
although many of the small-scale and service outlets closed because of
the 8 November 2016 withdrawal of 86% of the country’s currency remain
shuttered. The GST, as finally announced in a midnight ceremony in
Parliament, contains a plethora of rates and variants that make nonsense
of the claim that it is a single tax. Not to mention the fact that the
hyper-high 28% and the elevated 18% rate are certain to boost inflation
and reduce economic growth. In another example of impulsive
decision-making, the meat trade was banned with immediate notice, only
to be permitted again after havoc got created in markets and homes
across the country. As for Aadhaar, who will compensate those whose
numbers get stolen or otherwise misused for a transaction in any of the
many activities in which it is being made mandatory? Those responsible
for Aadhaar should be made personally liable for every loss caused by
defects in design and implementation, including safety and secrecy
issues. However, in reality, many of those responsible get moved to
higher responsibilities. India remains a country whose politicians
reward failure and penalise success. After seeking to force all bank
depositors and cellphone owners to get linked to Aadhaar, the deadline
for such a move has without explanation been put off to 31 March, and
even this may not be final. Instead of “Minimum Government and Maximum
Governance”, a bureaucracy given too much power and freedom may inflict
the country with “Minimum Governance and Maximum Mistakes”. It is time
for Prime Minister Modi to snatch back control from the hands of UPA-era
bureaucrats, so that he can ensure the same standard of efficacy as was
visible when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat.

Whether it be Nitish Kumar seeking to
convert Bihar into a teetotal state, or Vasundhara Raje trying to reduce
freedom of speech in Rajasthan to the North Korean level, the frequent
use of state power and repressive law to enforce outdated preferences on
diet, dress, lifestyle and in other ways on the entire populace has
resulted in a weakening of the liberal ecosystem needed for growth. Our
politicians have certainly won freedom for themselves in 1947, and their
lavish lifestyles make this obvious, but such liberation has yet to
reach the people, who remain shackled and crippled by laws,
administrative practices and regulations that ought to have been
discarded a century ago. Any candidate interested in winning elections
in 2019 needs to understand that the people of India, especially the
young, will no longer tolerate being directed and dominated by
colonial-style practices. The people seek the freedom that is inherent
in a genuine Sanatani system. They are chafing at the Wahhabi-style
proscriptions and prohibitions the people are being bombarded with on an
almost daily basis, and their patience at such practices is almost at
an end.

Friday, 15 December 2017

China and India are the fastest-growing major economies in the world,
and together ensure a huge amount of business for the United Kingdom.
However, flights by domestic (i.e. non-UK) carriers from these two
locations usually are made to land and takeoff from Terminal 4 of
Heathrow, which is possibly the worst. There are, of course, exceptions.
Air India apparently lands in Terminal 2, while British Airways seems
to have almost a monopoly over Terminal 5. December 10 was not a good
day for flights coming into and out of London. The weather made it
difficult to operate flights,and many were cancelled. However, the Jet
Airways flight from Delhi to London has the advantage of taking off at
lunchtime, so that a night’s sleep is not lost either in catching an
early morning flight or onboard the aircraft.
The flight landed safely and on time at Heathrow. For most, once outside
the aircraft, it may take more than two hours to finally get in front
of an Immigration counter, so slow and long are the queues of visitors.
Those travelling Business Class are fortunate, for they get to use the
Fast Track facility, which is much quicker. It must be said that the
British people, no matter their ethnicity, are usually polite and
friendly, and so it was at the Immigration counter, where those in
charge worked efficiently to ensure that the lines got cleared as
quickly as it was possible in an era where terrorism is a constant
presence. Indeed, several of the bridges of London now have metal
railings on the side of the walkway, so as to prevent a terrorist from
running over pedestrians the way it happened on the very bridge this
columnist crossed on foot to reach an office close to where he had been
earlier.
Even on the walkways, there were obstacles placed, so that a terrorist
in a car or truck would not be able to go very far along the pedestrian
walkway of a bridge before being stopped by two concrete obstacle placed
side by side, leaving space through them only for those on foot.
However, terror groups are adept at finding out new ways of fulfilling
their ghastly task, and recently there have been situations in London
where motorcycle riders have sought to grab wallets and other valuables
from nearby pedestrians and thereafter make good their escape. Overall,
however, good policing and a comprehensive intelligence network have
ensured that London remains safer than Paris, just as in New York, where
the New York Police Department (NYPD) lives up to their reputation for
excellence. A reasonable degree of personal safety is among the reasons
why so many individuals from across Asia settle down in London,
acquiring houses and businesses there. These days, the greatest influx
seems to be the Chinese, who are coming across in large numbers. They
are followed by those from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries,
especially Qatar, whose citizens have bought several of the
architectural landmarks of the city, as also such favourites of the
tourist as Harrods.
Meeting those conversant about the situation in North Africa and West
Asia, it was clear that within that region, it was Iran that was the
target of suspicion, despite its having signed the nuclear deal a year
ago and thereby placing all its nuclear facilities under hugely
intrusive international inspections. In contrast to the rhetoric against
Iran, complies about Wahabbism were few, although of course that was
recognised as a danger. Many of the Arab countries have managed to keep
the Wahabbis at bay, among them being Egypt, where the Muslim
Brotherhood under Mohammad Morsi was removed from office and replaced by
General Abdul Fatah al Sissi, who is much more of a moderate in
theology and has taken steps to reduce the influence of Wahabbis in the
country. Within the GCC, the UAE and Bahrain are far more liberal in the
theologies they support than Qatar. The big change is Saudi Arabia,
where Crown Prince Mohammad has publicly called for an end to the two
centuries of domination of Wahabbis over several of the institutes of
the country, and through these to the rest of the
world. Giving women the right to drive or sanctioning the opening of
movie theatres may not seem like much progress in the rest of the world,
but in Saudi Arabia, such edicts constitute a revolution.
However, goaded by the very countries that signed the nuclear deal with
Iran, the Crown Prince is being prodded to take on Iran, perhaps even
through a war such as was fought in the 1980s between Tehran and
Baghdad. It may be remembered that during the 1939-45 global war, the UK
and the US assisted the Soviet Union against Gerrnany, even though they
were anti-thetical to the Communist Party. This was a sensible move in
the context of the need to defeat Hitler. In much the same way, however
unpleasant the Iranian regime may be to Riyadh, it would be better to
avoid a confrontation with the largest Shia-majority country in the
world, and focus is read on ensuring that Wahabbi influence in Saudi
Arabia diminish and disappear.
Among the factors responsible for the two front battle that the Saudi
Crown Prince is waging must be included the goading of the US and other
NATO partners, who have been encouraging Riyadh to confront Tehran, the
way they promoted the war between Iran and Iraq in the past, when Saddam
Hussein was in charge of Iraq. The war immensely strengthened the
religious zealots in Iran and weakened the rest of civil society,
besides causing losses on an almost unbearable scale. In London, Enemy
Number 1 is Russia and Enemy Number 2 Iran. Far better would have been
for NATO to concentrate on the battle against Wahabbism being waged by
moderate Muslims across the world,and in dealing with the problem posed
by North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Tuesday, 12 December 2017

Aegis warships from the US, Japan and South Korea will conduct a
computer simulation to follow ballistic missiles using radar and
exchange intelligence with each other. Tensions have surged on the
Korean Peninsula after the November 29 launch of the Hwasong-15 ICBM,
which the DPRK claims could deliver a "super-large heavy warhead"
anywhere on the US mainland. Pyongyang has described the exercises as US
President Donald Trump “begging for a nuclear war.” Meanwhile, the
foreign ministers of Japan, Australia and India are meeting in New
Delhi.
Can the US break the vicious cycle on the Korean Peninsula with new
alliances? We turn to our panel to find out: Rong Ying, Vice President
of CIIS, China Institute of International Studies; Sharon Squassoni,
Director and Senior Fellow, Proliferation Prevention Program at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies; Yuki Tatsumi, Senior
Associate and Director of the Japan program at the Stimson Center;
Madhav Nalapat, UNESCO Peace Chair and Director of the Geopolitics and
International Relations Department at Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

Saturday, 9 December 2017

Far from destroying communal harmony, the temple would substantially calm the roiled waters of inter-religious strife in India.

From
his 1919 backing for a revivalist campaign for the survival of the
Caliphate in Turkey, to the close of his life, when he insisted on
handing over a vast sum of money to the very Pakistan that was at war
with India, Mahatma Gandhi was true to his saintly nature in turning the
other cheek and much more at every blow received. Who but the Mahatma
would advise the British people to open the doors of their houses to
Hitler, or tell the Jews that it was best that they calmly accept what
the Nazis had in mind for them, as by doing so, they would “transform
hatred into love”? Many Jews did indeed accept their fates without
protest, but the hatred that was so manifest in Nazi minds for the
Jewish people only seemed to grow with each sacrifice of several hundred
thousand of some of the most gifted individuals on the planet. And so
it proved with communal relations in India. Rather than flock to the
Congress Party and abandoning the Muslim League, more and more Muslims
joined the Muslim League. With every effort at appeasement by the
Congress leadership, it was M.A. Jinnah who became stronger and more
determined on Partition. Eventually, despite his superlative inner
qualities, the Mahatma failed to keep India united. Appeasement of the
fringe failed to extinguish that exclusivist tendency, and instead,
empowered it to a level where a small but intransigent segment of the
Muslim community set the direction and the pace of events involving the
community as a whole. Much as has been taking place in India since
Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors (including A.B. Vajpayee) turned the
concept of secularism upside down by enforcing a discriminatory set of
edicts on Hindus, even while retaining such British-era atrocities as
state control of temples.

In the present era, where evening
entertainment is increasingly composed of watching talk shows on
television, we see those who insist on purdah and on triple talaq, and
who mourn the fact that the Wahhabi version of Sharia law has not yet
become mandatory in India, get presented not as the pallbearers, but as
the torch carriers of secularism. This despite the reality of the
tactics of Nehruvian secularists having failed in their decades-long
mission of seeking to keep India united. 2004-2014 was a period when
India was ruled by Sonia Gandhi, who was a zealous enthusiast of
Nehruvian secularism. This columnist predicted several times that such
zeal on her part would lead not to a dimming of communal flames in
India, but in their vigorous perpetuation, and so it has proved. Despite
this, however, every day some “opinion maker” or the other insists on
continuing with the very policies that have over nearly a century
severely damaged the societal fabric of the subcontinent of India.

Through newspaper opeds, television
appearances and interventions in the courts, Nehru-model secularists
decry efforts at building a temple dedicated to Lord Ram at the site of
his birth. They even debunk any notion of his existence, despite
multiple historical proofs to the contrary. For them—in effect—the
history of India began around a millennium ago, while what came before
that was simply myth and legend. Fear that the courts may decree that a
Ram Temple be constructed at the site where the Babri Masjid stood till
1992, has alarmed them, as in their view, such a temple would bring the
“death of secularism” in our country. They are wrong. It is they who
have, by slow degrees, been choking to death genuine secularism in
India, by justifying and adding on to practices and decrees that are
suffused with a discriminatory intent. Far from destroying communal
harmony, such a temple would substantially calm the roiled waters of
inter-religious strife in India. A similar act of divinely inspired
grace and accommodation on the part of the Muslim community in India in
the matter of handing over the original sites of the birthplace of Lord
Krishna at Mathura and where the Kashi Viswanath temple stood (before it
was destroyed) would diminish to vanishing point any latent impulses at
communal hatred on the part of the Hindus of India. But for that to
happen, the Muslim community will need to take back the veto that has
long been exercised over their decisions by the small minority of
Wahhabis within their midst, who oppose any act of grace and
beneficence, any deed of mercy and compassion, and who constantly seek
to poison inter-religious harmony in India, of course in the name of
secularism.

Where in the priceless tenets made
available to humanity by the Prophet Muhammad has it been said that it
is an act of piety to erect a mosque atop the smashed edifice of a
temple? Indeed, a case may be made that offering prayers within a
structure built atop desecrated idols is a certain pathway to hell in
the afterlife. Gestures of conciliation and reconciliation are what keep
the peace in societies. An act of such surpassing nobility as handing
over the Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi sites by Muslim brothers and
sisters to the Hindu community, and subsequently building mosques
elsewhere that would rival the finest in the world, would strengthen
secularism in the country in a way such that it would be impossible for
Hindu exclusivists (and there are indeed such) to any more gain
traction. Once the Ram and Krishna places of birth and the original site
of the Kashi Viswanath temple be restored to their former glory and
significance, any effort (very often ISI-funded) by Hindu groups to seek
to alter the status quo in respect of any other existing mosque should
be met with police bullets.

Those seeking to put off to eternity the
building of a Ram Temple at Ayodhya are wrong in their assumptions. Far
from damaging secularism, such a temple would strengthen its roots and
ensure communal harmony based on the reality of a common ethnic and
cultural DNA between Indian and Indian, no matter the faith each
subscribes to.

Friday, 8 December 2017

Thanks to President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the
Communist Party of China Central Committee, the CPC has placed emphasis
not just on government-to-government contacts but also interactions
between the CPC and the political parties of other countries.

On this front, Xi is moving ahead of several other world leaders, who
focus on only government-to-government talks and justify it by claiming
that the foreign participants in such talks also belong to a political
party, and that is what diplomacy is all about.

However, the reality is, although many of the top office-bearers of
political parties in several countries may not be privy to information
relating to the government, their contact with the people is often
deeper than senior ministers. And given this fact, very often those
working at the organizational level in political parties have a far
better understanding of the ground realities than those who occupy
high-level posts in the government.

Xi is placing emphasis on gathering knowledge about the ground
realities in different countries and, in the process, ensuring that the
CPC both as a political organization and a governmental machinery knows
the facts not just from foreign government sources but from political
parties as well.

Only through a correct understanding of the geopolitical realities
will Xi be able to give shape to the global vision mapped out in the
Belt and Road Initiative, which is a grand project taken up by China.
That is why it is essential to ensure each country involved in the Belt
and Road Initiative sets aside its differences and cooperates with the
others so as to make the initiative's operation smooth.

History tells us that the "zero sum" game forced upon countries by
the major powers in the previous centuries did not yield mutually
beneficial results, so China has to convince every country that its
participation in the Belt and Road projects would lead to a "win-win"
outcome.

The recently concluded 19th CPC National Congress represented a
historical "coming of age" of not only China but also the Chinese
people, and graduating to the front ranks of the international
community. Indeed, in the first half of this century, China, the United
States, Russia and India will become the most significant powers in the
world.

But along with these four powers, the lesser powers as well as
smaller countries will be critical to the success of the Belt and Road
Initiative. There is an effort by those opposed to China's peaceful rise
to portray the proceedings of the 19th Party Congress as reflecting a
"great power" mentality that would pose a challenge to other countries.

So special efforts need to be made to make India a part of the Belt
and Road Initiative, particularly because the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor component of the initiative has created a controversy in India.
Ensuring that New Delhi's concerns are addressed and the second-most
populous country get the same access to the benefits from the Belt and
Road projects as the biggest would go a long way toward convincing India
to join the initiative, as the US and Japan, in different measures,
have indicated they may participate in it.

At a time when the US, and to a certain degree the European Union,
are moving away from globalization, Xi has emphasized that China remains
committed to globalization and free trade. And the numerous
party-to-party dialogues initiated by the CPC are meant to ensure that
political parties across the globe understand that China remains
committed to the policy of global peace and development.

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About Prof. M. D. Nalapat

Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat (aka MD Nalapat or Monu Nalapat), holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and is Director of the Department of Geopolitics at Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. The former Coordinating Editor of the Times of India, he writes extensively on security, policy and international affairs. Prof. Nalapat has no formal role in government, although he is said to influence policy at the highest levels. @MD_Nalapat

MD Nalapat's anthology 'Indutva' (1999)

In 1999, Har-Anand published Indutva an anthology of MD Nalapat's 1990s columns from the Times of India. The individual columns are posted here, in 1998 and 1999 of the blog archive, though the exact dates of publication are uncertain.